Imponderables
by Scandalacious Intentions
Summary: Luckily, Fiyero behaved in a most gentlemanly fashion and filled the silence for her. “And then I would move on to imponderables.”'...Fiyero attempts to solve the world's many mysteries.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing. I don't even own these socks. Laura, if you're reading this…I didn't steal them. I borrowed without permission which is what I am about to do with Gregory Maguire's characters.**

**A/N: It's been a while since I've written any Wicked fanfiction so I thought it was about time I did.**

Elphaba Thropp was now positive that this was a dream. This was the only theory that made any sense because she couldn't think of any reason why, in her waking life, she would be lying on the floor of the Gillikin forest whilst wrapped up in the arms of the Captain of the Gale Force who just happened to be possibly the most attractive man she had come across (who wasn't fictional) and who only a matter of hours ago had been engaged to the girl who just happened to be possibly the most attractive woman she had ever come across and who used to be her best friend. That sounded awfully complicated. It also sounded like the plot of a romance novel. She knew she should have avoided them; especially reading them just prior to falling asleep. She hated them. She had always hated them. Why, when she was in love with a man who would blatantly never be hers, would she take to reading them? And then she remembered, she had always been a fan of torturing herself.

'Oh hell," she "thought" to herself. "It's my dream and I'm going to do whatever I want."

The aforementioned former Captain of the Guard, raised one eyebrow and studied her striking face for signs of wakefulness. "Fae?"

Elphaba gasped. She was talking. She was talking in her sleep, in her sleep. That confused her even further. She frowned. Confusion was an alien reaction.

"What _are_ you talking about?" he asked her, the smile slowly spreading across his face in a manner that made her forget to do things, like breathe for instance.

Finally regaining the power of speech, Elphaba murmured, "It doesn't matter."

"It matters to _me_." he told her, his surprising earnestness evident in his tone.

Elphaba sighed the weary sigh of a lifelong cynic. "Yes but you're not going to be here when I wake up Fiyero, so it's irrelevant."

"Well where the hell am I going to be?" he asked her, his grin now stretching from ear to ear. "I'm a fugitive with a price on my head. I'm hardly going to nip into town for a new tie."

Elphaba laughed breathily, watching her breath turn to ice in the cold night air. Oh well, so long as she was dreaming, she might as well enjoy it. She shivered and leant in closer to her…what should she call him?

"What shall I call you?" she asked him, bolder now she knew that he was only a figment of her overactive imagination.

"Well Fiyero might do it." he said, smirking. "Although a lot of girls used to regularly refer to me as 'The Sex Pest', so that does the same job."

Right. She was glad to have cleared things up. Where was she? Oh yes…she shivered and leant in closer to her…Sex Pest. No, that didn't sound right at all.

"I'm _not _calling you Sex Pest, Fiyero."

"Good." he told her, an expression of mock relief gracing his handsome face. "It helps me pretend that I'm not one."

He was so close now that Fiyero could count her eyelashes. His breath was hot on her forehead and for the heat at least, Elphaba was grateful. She buried her head in the crook of his arm and looked up into the eyes she had thought were forest green. Now she was looking at them closely she could detect the hints of silver and a dark shade of blue. Leaning in further she glimpsed flecks of gold that perfectly matched the aura he emitted.

"What?" he asked, frown lines that had once scared her more than slightly, made him look disturbingly sexy. He looked like a thinker or a philosopher.

"You have lovely eyes." she told him, not in the least abashed as she was quite sure that the _real_ Fiyero would never hear a word of this. "They're very…deep."

"So are you." he joked.

"You _do_ think, don't you? You pretend that there's nothing in your head that's of any worth and actually, I think you'll find that you'd miss your brain if you ever lost it; not that that's possible."

"That period of my life is long over." Fiyero assured her, wondering what had provoked her curiosity regarding his thoughts. "It's odd. I used to think a lot as a child. I was a very strange little boy. My thoughts always used to go to a world where everything was backwards."

"What?" Elphaba laughed.

"Oh yeah. The people walked backwards and talked backwards and I used to wonder how it was possible to _eat _backwards. Only, as far as I can gather, that would be like eating a sandwich and then regurgitating it back out to form a sandwich. Am I making you sick?"

Elphaba laughed. "Just a little bit. Yero, what I want to know is how in Oz you managed to think up a world where that happened? Were you _that_ bored?"

"That's the genius thing." he told her, beaming. "_I_ didn't think it up. I read about it somewhere in my father's library and try as I might, I just couldn't find the book it came from. I tried for years and then I just sort of gave up on books when I was about ten but my obsession with this place went on for years. By the time I was fourteen I was wondering how a person went about having sex backwards. By the time I was _fifteen_ I tried it."

"Sweet Lurline." murmured Elphaba, rolling her eyes at his promiscuity and to a lesser extent, his decidedly odd but at the same time, fascinating, obsession. He wasn't quite who she expected the man of her dreams to be anymore and if that was true then surely this scenario had to be real life.

Though that didn't explain _how_ she was in this scenario…

"And then I used to let my mind wander."

"That I _do_ believe." she muttered, nudging him playfully to let him know that she was joking. She had long learned that she used sarcasm so often that it was no longer seen as just a joke. "Although, are you sure it's big enough to be out on its own?"

Fiyero gave her a sarcastic smile that made her insides melt.

"I used to try and answer unanswerable questions."

Elphaba frowned in slight confusion. How was that possible? And how would Fiyero Tiggular of all people, go about solving the mysteries of the universe?

"I used to ask myself what I would do if I could make myself invisible."

"And what _would_ you do?"

"I'd go to the Gilikinese ambassador's daughter's bedroom and hang around for a bit." he told her. At least he had the decency to avert his eyes and blush slightly. "And then I'd wonder what I'd do if I could stop time."

"Oh yes?" she asked, her thick, dark eyebrows raised so high, Fiyero might have thought that they had disappeared beyond her hairline, and a smile playing on her thin, pink lips. "Would that involve the ambassador's daughter too?"

"Every last one of them involved the ambassador's daughter." he admitted.

"You know," she mused aloud, only half joking. "I'm beginning to see why those girls called you 'The Sex Pest'."

He laughed and leant into her. He smelt of pine needles and spring breezes; a scent that was purely Fiyero and would remind her of him for the remainder of her life. Slowly his lips met hers and caressed them inducing tingling sensations in the pit of her stomach that she had never known it was possible to feel. His feather light kisses eventually came to a halt and he pulled away to take all of her in.

This was new territory for Elphaba. She couldn't think of anything to say. She already knew that her terms of endearment left a lot to be desired., her idea of a compliment was a far cry from everyone else's and somehow the time just didn't seem right for a sarcastic quip.

Luckily, Fiyero behaved in a most gentlemanly fashion and filled the silence for her.

"And then I would move on to imponderables."

Elphaba couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. He had just kissed her so tenderly, made her heart pound and introduced her to a whole new range of emotions and sensations and now he was talking about the innermost workings of his ten year old brain.

"You know," he said, wondering how the word 'imponderables' could have confused her. "When scientists say that cats and dogs are colour blind…how do they know? Cats and Dogs are different. What dog is going to tell them? What do ants say to each other as they carry leaves back? What force makes them carry leaves back to the nest? How do migrating birds know which bird to follow? Maybe the lead bird just wants some alone time."

She stared at him, incredulously.

"And I still don't know the answers though I have no doubt that _you_ do. I also used to wonder whether we all saw the same colour. I used to think that maybe when I was seeing red, you for instance might be seeing blue."

Elphaba scoffed. "Well I think we _all_ know the answer to that one. When I see green, trust me, the _world_ sees green."

"You're wrong." he told her, with an odd look in his complexly coloured eyes. "I know it for a fact." His confidence wasn't cockiness but of the deepest sincerity. "You see, I don't see what you see. I don't know what kind of green you see but I imagine it's the same sort of colour as pond water."

"You're an awfully good guesser." she told him, her tone dangerously icy. This was clearly a topic she did not want to discuss.

Fiyero cleared his throat nervously, not sure how his next observation would be received.

"Whereas, _I_ see the most beautiful shade of green I have ever come across. When the sun shines on it, it's the colour of meadows in spring. When it's dark outside, it's the colour of Lurlinemas trees. When you're angry, it's the colour of emeralds. When you're rarely blissfully happy, it's the colour of grass in the early morning just as the dew is forming on its blades. I wish my skin was that exciting."

He could go on with a different shade for every emotion. He had studied her for years but Elphaba had evidently heard enough. She kissed him fiercely enough to elicit a cry of surprised pleasure and decided that if she was dreaming, she ought to allow herself to dream more often.

He waited until he thought she had fallen asleep in the crook of his arm to kiss her forehead and whisper conspiratorially in her ear, doubting whether she would hear anyway.

"And er…incidentally, you're not dreaming."

Elphaba squeezed her eyes tight shut and pressed her lips together to stop them forming a smile that could have lit the emerald city. Finally she had found someone who thought her genuinely beautiful. Finally she had found someone who also tried to answer unsolvable problems (although _hers_ were of a different sort entirely) and finally she had found someone who saw through her and all her defences. Someone who was evidently able to discern her thoughts when he was so sure he didn't even have any of his own.

"I know."


End file.
